6.22.2016

Hey, I haven’t had a chance to get back to the Leman Russ/ Destroyer (got a pile of edits that needed my attention) but I wanted to share something else I’ve been working on.
Sort of an ongoing background project.

As I’ve mentioned here once or thrice, my biggest 40K army
is the Alpha Legion. I was a fan
and follower of the 20th Legion since back when they were just the Napoleons of
Chaos, long before THQ and Dan Abnett made it cool to like them. And as such, I’ve always had a place for
cultists in my army.

Alas, for years, the only cultist models were half a dozen
or so metal ones, half of which were leaders or special weapons. That’s not a lot of options. Plus, they were metal, so they could cost three
or four dollars apiece! Can you imagine
that? Paying four dollars for a single
GW figure? What craziness. Thank goodness for Finecast, am I right...?

Anyway...

Like most folks, I solved the problem by mashing things
together. A good mix of Catachan parts and Fantasy Marauders gave me a
nice group of post-apocalyptic looking cultists. Mix in a few Kroot accessories and
they looked great. And these guys worked
fine for many years. Then Dark Vengeanceshowed up and there were real cultist models. Not too posable, but lots of
variety. Also space to add on the odd bit of individual detail here and there.
Plus, through the miracle of eBay, I was able to get a bunch of them for less
than two dollars each...

But this still left me with all my old, homemade cultists in
their horned helmets and headbands. They
just don’t mesh well with the new ones.
Sooooo... what to do with about forty figures? And then it struck me that, in Age of Sigmar, it’s possible to field just one or two units and play like that. So
what if I just turned the mostly-Marauder ones back into regular Chaos
Marauders?

I went through all of the old cultists and sorted them into
mostly Catachan and mostly Marauder. In
a few cases, I found complementary pairs where I could swap legs and they’d
make a more-complete figure. Then, I
began to disassemble them.

Helpful Hint—The idea of cutting up figs like this might seem
intimidating. Just make sure you’ve got
a really sharp, clean blade, a good cutting surface, and plenty of light
(the seams can vanish in shadows, and I want to be cutting between components,
not through components).

It took about an hour to separate them all and scrape off
any of the white “soft spots” left from the glue. Then I dug up all the leftover Marauder parts
and made a good-sized squad of fifteen armed with axes and shields.

I also discovered I had enough bits sitting around to make
one more figure, and after a bit I decided I might make someone I could use as
a Darkoath Chieftain, using the Age of Sigmar rules that GW put up to go
with some of the Silver Tower figures. More on that later, depending on how it turns
out...

And as for the leftover, mostly-Catachan models... Well, as it happens a while back I also ended
up with a bunch of the hooded Adeptus Mechanicus heads. A few head swaps, a few details from the
Marauders and the Kroot, and now these figs will blend in much better with the
newer Alpha Legion cultists.

So don’t be afraid to cut up old figs and repurpose them. It
can save you a couple bucks and turn units you don’t use into units you do.
Heck, it might even give you something to play a new game with.

And I'm just adding this one last guy with the flagellant body and a flamer because I really liked how he turned out...

...There Is Only War!!!

I'm a long-time Warhammer 40,000 fan who thinks there's a viable middle ground between the folks who insist on dropping a few hundred dollars to get a usable army and the people who show up with a rubber dinosaur to represent a Carnifex or some green army men bulking out their Imperial Guard platoon.

Don't get me wrong. I love Games Workshop's models and I hate seeing a milk carton standing in for a Land Raider. But when a financial crunch forced me to become a lot more thrifty with my toy soldiers, I didn't stop playing. I just found ways to customize and create perfectly usable units with the resources I had. And I've done it enough that I think it's worth sharing with anyone who's interested.

So save a few frozen pizza boxes, grab some white glue, and let's build an Imperial Knight that any loyal servant of the Emperor would be honored to have fighting alongside them.

Disclaimer

Warhammer 40,000, Imperial Knights, Orks, Necrons, Dark Eldar, Alpha Legion, Relictors, Thousand Sons, Death Guard, Ultramarines, White Scars, Kroot, Khorne, Nurgle, Slaneesh, Tzeentch, Age of Sigmar, and many other terms and images used on this site are trademarks of Games Workshop Limited, which does not sponsor, endorse, or authorize this website. Please visit the official Games Workshop site at www.games-workshop.com